Our frantic race to escape Kyiv with newborn twins – as the Russian shells rained down
After spending 13 years trying for a baby, this British couple found a surrogate in Ukraine who gave birth last month. But their joy quickly turned into a heart-stopping drama
SNOOZING peacefully, one-monthold twins Sai and Amaya Parmar are a picture of contentment – although according to proud father Metaish, they are already making their personalities known. ‘Amaya may be smaller but she’s already the feisty one,’ he smiles. ‘Sai is a bit more laid back.’
‘And when they want feeding, they both let you know about it,’ adds mum Manisha.
Their precious twins may now be slumbering safely in the calm of the family home in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, but just days ago the couple were thousands of miles away, huddled with their fragile newborns in a basement as sirens sounded.
Their escape, when they dared to make it after days trapped underground, came in the form of a hair-raising 17-hour car journey cross-country, followed by a desperate trudge on foot in sub-zero temperatures with their babies clasped to their chests.
For the twins were born last month in Ukraine, just days before the country was plunged into war.
In what felt like a heartbeat, the couple’s 13-year quest for a family of their own – with numerous heart-breaking miscarriages and finally surrogacy – had flipped from a dream realised into an unimaginable nightmare.
Trapped in the chaos of war after the Russian army began its savage assault, the couple, along with Metaish’s elderly parents who had travelled with them to share in the joy, spent days alongside terrified Ukrainians below a Kyiv apartment building.
Escape from the capital was possible only via a treacherous road journey west to Lviv and on to the Polish border. It was a trip that the Parmars felt they had no option but to undertake last week.
‘It had got to the point where we felt that if we stayed one more day, we would all die,’ says 44-year-old Metaish.
Their dilemma is, of course, one that is being played out daily in Ukraine, where citizens have the devastating choice of facing Putin’s army or fleeing their homes for an uncertain future.
The bombing of the maternity and children’s wards of a hospital in Mariupol last week has only underlined the mercilessness of the Russian onslaught.
LITTLE wonder that the Parmars are profoundly grateful to be back at home. And their thoughts are with their surrogate – with whom they remain in touch – and the countless Ukrainians whose terror they briefly shared and who showed them nothing but kindness.
‘Old ladies were offering to give up their seats for us in the basement bunker,’ recalls Metaish. ‘We were humbled by their selflessness. Thinking of what they are going through still when we are home is heart-breaking. Every night we thank God we got to safety and pray for those still there.’
It is no wonder that Metaish and Manisha are struggling to process what they have been through.
‘We keep watching scenes on TV and it’s surreal, because we lived through some of that,’ Manisha, 43, tells me. ‘I think in many ways we’re still in shock.’
It’s also another turbulent chapter in their journey to parenthood. Married for 17 years, the couple suffered the heartbreak of repeated miscarriages, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy. Yet despite endless tests, doctors couldn’t pinpoint a reason.
‘In a way that was worse as we wanted there to be a problem that could be fixed,’ says Manisha, her eyes filing with tears at the memory.
‘It’s hard not to feel like a failure.’
Metaish adds: ‘I think at various stages we each felt like giving up, but we would keep each other going. It became us against the world.’
But by 2019, when yet another pregnancy ended, they realised they needed to try something different. ‘We sat down one day and talked about the fact that we were now 40, and if we wanted a family something had to change. That’s when we started to look into surrogacy,’ says Manisha.
As they did not have problems falling pregnant, they chose ‘gestational surrogacy’ – meaning the surrogate is a ‘host’ womb for their own embryo created from Metaish’s sperm and Manisha’s egg.
The initial plan was to opt for a British surrogate, but they quickly ruled it out. ‘Under UK law, there is potential for the surrogate to keep the baby even if genetically it isn’t theirs,’ says Metaish. ‘We couldn’t take that chance.’
Research led them to Ukraine, which has become an international centre for commercial surrogacy since the practice was legalised there in 2002. Some 2,500 children are born through surrogacy in Ukraine annually, with surrogates paid an average of £10,000. ‘We did a lot of research and it felt like the right place for us,’ says Manisha.
After settling on an agency in Kyiv, the couple flew to the capital in early 2020 for initial tests and chose their surrogate.
‘She had a healthy child of her own and we liked her profile,’ says Metaish. It was agreed that they would not meet in person.
They returned to the UK just a couple of days before the first Covid-19 lockdown, and it seemed fate had dealt the Parmars yet another cruel blow.
In fact, they were able to return to Ukraine in September 2020 to undergo IVF, and in spring 2021 the couple heard that their surrogate was pregnant with their embryos.
Week after anxious week unfolded as the pregnancy milestones were ticked off. At the 12-week scan, the couple learned they were expecting twins, and shortly afterwards that it was a boy and a girl.
‘We were ecstatic at every bit of good news, but at the same time we were scared to be too happy,’ recalls Manisha. ‘Every day we feared a call saying something had gone wrong.’ At six months, the couple
finally felt able to share their news with their families. By early February, both had taken leave from work – Manisha as an import co-ordinator, Metaish as an NHS cyber security manager – and were waiting with packed bags for the summons.
The call came on February 7 and the following day the couple – with Metaish’s parents Urmila and Bhupendra, who are in their 70s – flew to Kyiv, where their surrogate was already in hospital.
Talk of war was bubbling following the build-up of Russian troops on the border, but the Parmars weren’t worried. ‘No one we spoke to over there seemed concerned,’ says Manisha.
On February 11 at 10.53am, baby Amaya – the Hindu name means Angel of God – was delivered by Caesarean, weighing 4.7 lb. A minute later, her 6lb brother, Sai, whose name means Divine of God, followed. Within minutes, they were in the arms of their parents. ‘I remember thinking “Are these really my babies?” After everything we had been through it didn’t feel real,’ recalls Manisha of the moment she first cradled her son and daughter.
‘I can hardly put into words the joy we felt,’ Metaish adds. ‘It was the most amazing feeling – after everything, we were a family.’
The twins were kept under observation for four days as a precaution and the Parmars remained at the hospital, unperturbed by events in the wider world. ‘Relatives were ringing us telling us we needed to get home, but everyone around us was saying there was nothing to worry about,’ says Metaish. ‘We were in a bubble, really.’
They could not bring the twins home without getting passports issued, something they could only obtain with their birth certificates, a process that usually takes four to six weeks. To that end, the agency had rented an apartment for them, in Kyiv but on February 23, Metaish and Manisha were surprised to be told the birth certificates were ready to be picked up.
But the next day the family woke to the terrifying sound of gunfire, explosions and air raid sirens.
‘It was like all hell had broken loose. We phoned the agency but there was no answer. We didn’t know what was going on,’ he says.
Phone calls from frantic relatives soon filled them in: Ukraine was at war with Russia. ‘Our families were telling us to get the hell out but we couldn’t,’ says Metaish. ‘We had no paperwork for our babies. We had no choice but to stay.’
What followed was five days of hell. With air-raid sirens wailing, the family spent the hours between 6pm and 10am in the basement of their apartment block, with other shell-shocked families. Conditions were rudimentary, to say the least – it was freezing, and if anyone needed the lavatory, they would have to risk their lives by going back to their flat.
‘The Ukrainians were wonderful, offering us food and water, but it was incredibly distressing,’ says Manisha. Not least for the babies, who cried constantly.‘We had some baby food and nappies, but at one point I had no choice but to go to the one supermarket that was open,’ says Metaish. ‘I couldn’t leave my babies without food.’
He says that his heart was in his mouth as he navigated the deserted streets to a backdrop of gunfire.
The risk of leaving the bunker was underlined one morning when, having returned to their apartment for a few hours’ respite, the building was rocked by an explosion. ‘Two missiles had hit the block next door,’ says Metaish. ‘There was smoke everywhere. We grabbed the babies and fled back to the bunker.’
It reinforced their growing concern that they were sitting ducks. ‘Our baby food was running out and Manisha and I had barely eaten,’ Metaish says. ‘We had to get out.’
After hours on the phone to the British Embassy, he knew that emergency travel documents had been issued for the twins. But by then the embassy had moved to Lviv, almost 400 miles away.
‘It was a case of “We’ve got the documentation, but you have to come and get it”,’ says Metaish.
More frantic phone calls followed to find a driver prepared to undertake the perilous journey, but by the time they found someone – for a €5,000 (£4,200) fee – the city was under curfew. Anyone who ventured outside risked being shot. ‘It felt again like everything was against us,’ says Manisha.
Finally, on February 28, the curfew was lifted and Metaish and Manisha, each clasping a twin to their chest, huddled alongside Metaish’s parents in a tiny Peugeot 308. Save for a ten-minute break, their driver didn’t stop other than at the military checkpoints, the journey unfolding amid destroyed apartment blocks and cratered roads.
‘Our hearts were in our mouths the whole time,’ says Metaish. ‘We were exhausted, particularly Mum and Dad. None of us had had anything to eat for a couple of days, either.’
Finally, the family arrived at the British Embassy in Lviv, where
Every night we thank God we got to safety and pray for those who are still there
The Ukrainians were wonderful, offering us food and water
they were issued with the papers needed to cross into Poland at the border town of Krakovets.
But it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive away and with no cash left, they had to plead with their driver to take them, promising they would reimburse him once back in the UK. ‘Luckily, he trusted us,’ says Metaish.
He could only take them so far, however, and, deciding to leave their luggage behind, the family made the final half-hour journey on foot in temperatures of minus 7C.
‘We were all freezing and Mum and Dad could barely put one foot in front of another. But they never complained. Their only thought was for the babies,’ says Metaish.
The family arrived at the border to scenes of chaos: hundreds of people were gathered there, many having waited for 24 hours. ‘My heart sank,’ says Manisha. ‘It felt like so near, yet so far. I didn’t know how much more we could take.’
Luckily, an official took pity on them, and the family were ushered to the front of the queue. They crossed into Poland 30 minutes later, where they ate their first full meal in days, provided by refugee charities gathered there.
By then Manisha’s sister and brother-in-law had flown to Warsaw to meet them, and finally, last Wednesday, the couple and their twins flew to the UK.
It was the end of their extraordinary journey – and of course the start of another one.
‘We know how lucky we are to have finally become the family we always wanted,’ says Manisha. ‘We are grateful every minute, but our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine. ’